Overview

Winner of the Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize and the Bonnot Award for Naval History, this powerfully argued and objective history of the modern US Navy explains how the Navy defined its purpose in the century after 1890. It relates in detail how, over the years, the Navy formed and reformed its doctrine of naval force and operations around a concept of offensive sea control by a battleship fleet, and, new to America, the need to build and maintain an offensive battle fleet in peacetime. The author shows how this war-fighting organization responded to radical changes in political circumstance, technological innovation, and national needs and expectations.

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9780804727945

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A fine book: meticulous, judicious, incisive. It is a book to which the conventional exaggerations - must reading, relevant, if you're only going to read one book on the subject, etc. - actually may be said to apply... It is a study of the interactions of technology, bureaucracy, politics and culture, of how an institution adapts, or fails to adapt, to changing conditions. As such, the book belongs on a lot of desks at the Pentagon. - Washington Times Baer takes what could have been a dry topic - the political history of the modern U.S. Navy - and turns it into interesting reading. - Library Journal This is clearly one of the two or three most important works in American naval history published in the last decade; it has the potential to become a classic in the field. Well researched and carefully nuanced, it provides a distinctive perspective on the evolving historical relationship between national interest and national politics on the one hand and naval power on the other. Not only is this a significant contribution to scholarship - one that will critically influence how historians and political scientists think about American naval power - it is an enormously readable work. Baer writes beautifully, and he has organized his material effectively. The book is fully accessible to anyone interested in naval history. - Edward Rhodes, Rutgers University A valuable book that stimulates reflection, reconsideration, and debate. - International History Review Policy makers will benefit greatly from reading Baer's erudite review of the navy's previous successes and failures in developing strategy... In seeking to educate both the naval and the non-naval communities, Baer admirably fulfills the special obligation of a public historian to convey to several audiences his special understanding of the institution he serves. - The Public Historian

Baer takes what could have been a dry topic-the political history of the modern U.S. Navy-and turns it into interesting reading. -- Library Journal A valuable book that stimulates reflection, reconsideration, and debate. -- International History Review A fine book: meticulous, judicious, incisive. It is a book to which the conventional exaggerations- must reading, relevant, if you're only going to read one book on the subject, etc.-actually may be said to apply... It is a study of the interactions of technology, bureaucracy, politics and culture, of how an institution adapts, or fails to adapt, to changing conditions. As such, the book belongs on a lot of desks at the Pentagon. -- Washington Times This is clearly one of the two or three most important works in American naval history published in the last decade; it has the potential to become a classic in the field. Well researched and carefully nuanced, it provides a distinctive perspective on the evolving historical relationship between national interest and national politics on the one hand and naval power on the other. Not only is this a significant contribution to scholarship-one that will critically influence how historians and political scientists think about American naval power-it is an enormously readable work. Baer writes beautifully, and he has organized his material effectively. The book is fully accessible to anyone interested in naval history. -- Edward Rhodes Policy makers will benefit greatly from reading Baer's erudite review of the navy's previous successes and failures in developing strategy... In seeking to educate both the naval and the non-naval communities, Baer admirably fulfills the special obligation of a public historian to convey to several audiences his special understanding of the institution he serves. -- The Public Historian

'A valuable book that stimulates reflection, reconsideration, and debate.' International History Review

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